South Africa
South Africa, officially the Federal Republic of South Africa, was a pre-war country located in southern Africa. It was originally a colony of the United Kingdom and was reformed into a republic in 1969 and eventually transferred over to a sovereign state by 1972. Over the next couple of decades, South Africa became a modern nation, but struggled with race relations and apartheid which they eventually had to abolish by 1992 under international pressure. South Africa remained an ally to Britain post-independence but still struggled with race relations even after apartheid was abolished. The country's rich uranium reserves and advanced technological infrastructure, including a nuclear weapons program, made it a highly contested ally for both the Americans and Chinese leading up to the Great War. History Background and 20th Century South Africa was dominated by native African tribes during the first couple of centuries after Africa was first formed. In the 17th Century, Dutch colonists colonized South Africa and many Dutch colonists settled in and eventually created the language of Afrikaans. In the 19th Century, the British came and took over Cape Colony and by 1820, British colonists began pouring in. South Africa was eventually turned into a British colony and became the Union of South Africa by 1910. Officially, it was independent, but remained part of the British Empire as a dominion for over fifty years. Sometime around 1969, the British Parliament began reforming their colonies first starting with Rhodesia and eventually made it South Africa where they merged the country with other neighboring territories and countries all into one single unified state. That same year, the South African government called for independence and the government was reformed into a republic, but the country remained under British control as a protectorate. Three years later in 1972, the South African Independence Act was passed by the British parliament and South Africa became an independent nation and was fully recognized by the British and other nations as well. South Africa however, still maintained a system of apartheid and this caused many issues for the country leading to race riots, massacres, corruption, and international pressure to end the apartheid policy and regime. In the late 1970s, South American state began imposing sanctions on South Africa and it only increased into the 1990s and by 1992, South Africa officially abolished apartheid in the Apartheid Abolition Act passed by the nation's parliament with virtually no opposition and Nelson Mandela was elected into office as the State President of South Africa by 1993. South Africa also ended its occupation of Namibia (known as Southwest Africa under the Apartheid Regime), allowing it to become an independent nation. Early 21st Century The start of the 21st Century was one of hope in the eyes of the South African black population and mixed for the white population. Prior to the abolition of apartheid, the white population of South Africa enjoyed the highest standards of living and had the most power however, the loss of the apartheid regime and the rise of black politicians threatened many of them. Mandela promised to treat all South Africans fairy and managed to deliver on that promise easing racial tensions. Despite high crime levels and the disenfranchisement challenges left over from of apartheid, the country remained a stable developing nation for several decades after 1994, with the country experiencing its highest growth levels during the 2020's. However, inequality would remain an issue, with South Africa remaining in the top 10 for worst income inequality in the world leading up to the Great War. Pre-War Provincial Politics During the 2040's however, tensions rose again as natural resources became scarcer and scarcer. Old prejudices seeped into South African society. Crime levels and racial violence increased to levels yet unseen in all of South African history. The economy is deep in a recession, but doing better than most developing nations. Following global trends, politics became more and more radical. Several far-left and far-right political parties rose to prominence that divided the country's highly diverse provinces - split among capitalist and socialist lines. The South African Parliament was frequently interrupted by brawls between the socialist and capitalist parties seated in the building. It became impossible to pass legislation that all parties could agree on. Unable to formulate a single national policy in Parliament, the country became increasingly harder to govern. In 2049 however, the National Government successfully passed the Federation Bill, granting each province full-autonomy. The Republic of South Africa was renamed the Federal Republic of South Africa, and was modeled off of the United State's federation, but granted more independence to the administration of each province. Each province practically became an independent country of its own. The political and economical landscape of the country changed dramatically: * The Western Cape Province and Northern Cape Province consolidated to form the single Cape of Good Hope Province, where socialism was abolished and the provincial government was reformed into a Provincial Consulate. The Cape of Good Hope's economy would remain one of the more developed economies in Africa - relying mostly on its tourism and services sector, but also having a strong uranium mining and agriculture sector. The United States would forge a solid trade-partnership with the Cape - exchanging American-pioneered fusion powered products extensively for Cape-sourced uranium. * The North West Province controversially seceded from South Africa to become a part of Botswana. * The Eastern Cape renamed several times as it became characteristically more divided on policy. The Eastern Cape became increasingly conflicted over the issue of combining traditional communulism and chieftainship with socialism and modern democracy, with each subsequent administration pursuing a radically different economic policy. Because of the Eastern Cape's political indecisiveness, Western and Eastern powers invested in the Eastern Cape's economy, with the Eastern Cape eventually subsisting mostly from trade with China as communist influences rose to power in the Eastern Cape. The Eastern Cape's economy relied heavily on its agriculture and manufacturing sectors, with its manufacturing sector comprising chiefly of wind-energy production and automobile construction industries. * The Zulu Kingdom gained full reign over KwaZulu-Natal and its economy, turning it into a monarchy. KwaZulu-Natal would become dominated by capitalist Zulu-nationalism. KWaZulu's economy would continue to rely on its coal and steel mines, chemical processing industries and sugar cane agriculture economy. Only the provinces of Free State, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo would remain the same. They would come to be known as 'the Rainbow Nation provinces'. For several short years post-Federation the Rainbow Nation provinces enjoyed growth, but nothing similar to the 2020's boom. While the autonomous provinces mostly kept up, the former Eastern Cape collapsed. In 2058, the Eastern Cape came under the rule of the Xhosa monarchy. In the 2060's, however, a power struggle arose between several Xhosa-speaking royal houses within the monarchy, culminating into the Royal Xhosa War of 2069. This civil war was worsened by Cold War interests and would spill out to involve much of the rest of South Africa as the National Goverment tried to keep the peace. As a result of the conflict, there was a great emigration out of the Eastern Cape, particularly of Xhosa people. This came to be known as the Second Mfecane, otherwise known as the Great Migrant Crisis, which caused particular issue in Kwa-Zulu Natal where conflict between Xhosa's and Zulu's gave way to much ethnic violence. Although migration from the former Eastern Cape was a major cause for the migrant crisis, South Africa was also strained by immigration from neighboring Lesotho, Eswatini and Rhodesia among numerous other developing nations. Because of the country's relative success during the harsh times leading up to the Great War, it had become very alluring to become a South African citizen. Whether as a result of economic growth or immigration, the population grew dramatically. By 2062, overpopulation and rampant corruption had given way to major issues in crime, employment, service delivery and health services that threatened the country's stability. At this point, most of the country blamed immigration for these issues. Although the National Government resisted the passing of federal legislation to limit immigration, by the 2060's, the provincial governments of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Gauteng and the Cape Province had implemented pass laws in an effort to limit migration. Xenophobic, ethnic and racial violence prevailed throughout the country, despite preventative efforts from the National Government. Resource Wars Because of the high uranium demand, including from other nuclear Western nations like France and even from Russia, the South Africa's Cape of Good Hope and Rainbow Nation provinces fared better than most nations, especially during the Resource Wars. The Cape's energy consumption subsisted quite well during the Resource Wars, due in large part to its Koeberg nuclear power plant and its successful switch over to fusion powered appliances, modeled after the United States' own successful shift to harness the power of the atom. Unlike in the other provinces, state corruption became a rare occurrence in the Cape of Good Hope post-Federation. There was fierce competition between the Cape and Namibia over uranium mining and foreign trade - both nations benefited immensely from their major commercial seaports that attracted much trade from the United States and Taiwan, due to both Namibia and the Cape's long established geographic advantages for international maritime trade. Similar to the Cape of Good Hope, the Rainbow Nation provinces benefited much from their deep uranium reserves. Unlike the Cape of Good Hope and Eastern Cape, however, the other South African provinces would never fully adopt alternative energy sources - by the 2060's these provinces' economies were ultimately doomed as a result of their reliance on the nation's once large but depleting fossil fuel reserves.Although the Eastern Cape's renewable wind-energy would help to sustain the country nationally, its automobile industry would eventually collapse as by 2060 most nations had no oil to fuel their cars. Emigration as a result of unemployment would eventually become an increasingly huge problem for the province. By 2077, save for the advanced wind turbines and isolated small farms, the Eastern Cape would come be largely abandoned to the warring Xhosa tribes and communists. When, by 2060, the world's oil reserves dried up and most countries' economies collapsed, the South African nation's one saving grace was its oil-from-coal refineries, which it would sustain on for a little longer before it too collapsed by 2066. While uranium was the USA's chief concern with South Africa, It is because of South Africa's oil-to-coal refineries that PRC set its eyes on the country once again. Because of South Africa's importance to both nations, the USA and PRC competed over South Africa's interest greatly leading up to the Great War. In April 2070, President Zanele Ncamashe was caught in a scandal where it was revealed that her administration was funneling weapons to the communist Free Zimbabwe Movement in Rhodesia, to assist them in their decade long bush-war with the Rhodesian government. Despite democratic reformation in the previous century, Rhodesia was still ruled by a white minority government that enraged the vast impoverished population of black Rhodesians. Ncamashe was impeached by the end of the year and was replaced by Sanders Visser as the new State President. Ncamashe's impeachment was highly controversial - on one hand the majority black population of South Africa felt sympathy for the Free Zimbabwe Movement's strife for equality, many other South Africans, especially of the whites and Ndebele, condemned the FZM for its human rights abuses, including the massacre of white and Ndebele Rhodesian farmers by the Zimbabwean Liberation Army. Either way, xenophobia targeting Zimbabweans became a pandemic in rural north-eastern South Africa. In July 2070, the South African Army was deployed to Rhodesia in support of the government against the insurgent forces of the Free Zimbabwe Movement. The South African government was motivated to invade Rhodesia for numerous reasons: to protect South-African Ndebele families, to crack down on illegal activity on the border and to get discounted access to the Rhodesian coal reserves, as promised by the Rhodesian government. South African troops made it into the southern parts of the country and managed to help the Rhodesian Army regain lost ground but by 2073, the Free Zimbabwe Movement had begun its invasion of South Africa. Although communism was totally legal in South Africa, a manic Red Terror swept the nation as the government cracked down on suspected communist sympathizers of the FZM, which particularly destabilized the Eastern Cape where the communist South African Liberation Party had managed to maintain a strong base despite the ongoing conflict between the royal Xhosa houses. This crackdown also estranged the nation with one of its major trade partners, the People's Republic of China, although some provinces like the Cape Province had cut ties with this communist nation several decades prior. By 2073, South Africa was once again in the throws of a severe drought, which hit the Free State, Eastern Cape and Cape of Good Hope especially hard. In November 2074, tensions with Lesotho broke. Lesotho had been highly reliant on its migrant labour force in South Africa and when protesting Sotho migrant miners were massacred by South African Police the Lesotho government made due on their ultimatum and shut off South Africa's access to the Katse Dam, which South Africa in turn was highly reliant on. The South African Army invaded Lesotho on December 2074. Great War Although South Africa had officially dismantled their nuclear weapons program back in 1989, South Africa was still bombarded by nuclear exchange during the Great War. It remains a mystery why, but several have speculated that South Africa had had a much larger role to play in the nuclear exchange than expected.Category:Pre-War Countries Category:Locations Category:Pre-War Factions